The Pocket Blog

Happy New Year, folks! If you’re cold as ice and willing to sacrifice some Pygmies, now’s the time to do it over at Facebook! If you complete all the quests by January 18, you’ll earn the “chilly snow” power! Use the coconut tree trap, the dangerous fridge, and the ever-reliable lightning! Remember, there’s five quests and five days to do it in!

Hey, everyone! This is an awesome animation from Erik Prothero at Exceptional Minds. It shows you just can’t be too complacent about the little guys in your iOS device. They may have ideas of their own!

And here it is! The Pygmies dive into an underwater world of menace and treasure in Episode 48, “Call of Booty!”

The gods, pleased with Teela’s inventiveness, have granted the Pygmies a special pair of waterwings. You may have to select them in the menu, but they’re available and ready to use. Drop the waterwings on any Pygmy, and he’ll dive into the water.

In order to swim, tap on either side of the Pygmy in the direction you want him to go. To change course, hold the tap in the new direction. To tilt upward, you tap slowly; to tilt downward, you tap faster. On top of that, the Pygmy, at rest, will float towards the surface. Be sure to dodge the various oceanic hazards, which include mines that will turn you to stone, face-hugging jellyfish, and voracious oysters.

Once you’re in the water, you’ll notice a helpful inset map of the entire swimmable area. In the map, a piece of booty will appear as a blinking yellow dot. After you grab the first one, the second one will appear, and so on.

Oh, yes. There’s one little detail about that first piece of booty. Once you’ve claimed it, the game is on. Your breathing time is limited, and the jellyfish decide that they desperately want to get their tendrils on some Fresh Pygmy in order to plant their eggs inside you! When that happens, it’s not pretty!

TIPS:

The jellyfish are fast but they can be confused by sudden movements in another direction. So try swerving to buy some time!

The game area loops. If the treasure is behind you, you can shoot forward and catch up with it from the other side.

Watch that green bar under the map! If it shrinks to nearly nothing… you’re running out of air!

With 20 pieces of booty, it’s a supreme test of your awesomeness if you can get ’em all. Can you do it?

Last but not least… the Oyster God Idol beckons! If you active the Challenge of the Gods, Episode 48, you can collect this valuable piece of merchandise! Rise to the challenge and gain even more booty!

We’re very excited about this update, and we hope you will be too. By the way, the folks at TouchArcade have written up a nice piece about Episode 48 (Read it here), and don’t forget Dave’s State of the Island to see things from the programmer’s perspective!

The release has been approved, so be on the look out for the new update 9PM Pacific Time. We’ll have an extensive post about it later today, but in the meanwhile, check out Dave’s State of the Island on Touch Arcade!